Figure 3.

Simulation of the impact of stratification on patient response to therapy. In this example, a physiological model representing rheumatoid arthritis was used to evaluate potential markers of patient response to a novel therapy, X, alone and in combination with standard methotrexate (MTX) therapy. The model identified five factors that, if measureable in vivo, could be used to stratify patient populations to improve response to therapy from 44% to 72% for monotherapy, and from 68% to 90% for combination therapy. Although this hypothesis would need to be tested, once again it helps to focus early experimental work on specific areas.